IAM927- CEO Creates In-house Trained Virtual Assistants
Podcast Interview with Barbara Turley
Barbara Turley is an investor, entrepreneur, and Founder & CEO of The Virtual Hub – a company that creates in-house trained and managed virtual assistants for businesses that need to free up time and energy so they can go to the next level. With a strong focus on customized training and ongoing career development, The Virtual Hub's team is trained in cutting-edge programs (like Hubspot, Ontraport, etc.) to best meet their client’s unique needs in digital marketing, social media, personal assistant services, and administrative support. Barbara is also a mom of 2, wife to her best friend Eti, and an adventure lover with a passion for horses, skiing, tennis, and spending time in nature.
- CEO Hack: Doing less because less is more
- CEO Nugget: Just keep going
- CEO Defined: Keeping the team inspired and motivated
Website: https://www.thevirtualhub.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barbara-turley/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheVirtualHubLtd
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Transcription
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[00:00:19.39] – Intro
Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.
[00:00:46.70] – Gresham Harkless
Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast, and I have a very special guest on the show today at Barbara Turley of the virtual hub. Barbara, it's awesome to have you on the show.
[00:00:56.50] – Barbara Turley
Thanks so much, Gresh, for having me. Excited to be on your show.
[00:00:59.50] – Gresham Harkless
No problem. Super excited to have you on as well. And before we jump in, I want to read a little bit more about Barbara so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. Barbara is an investor, entrepreneur, and founder and CEO of the Virtual Hub, a company that creates in-house trained and managed virtual assistants for businesses that need to free up time and energy so they can go to the next level. With a strong focus on customized training and ongoing career development, the virtual hub's team is trained in cutting-edge programs like HubSpot, Ontraport, etc, to meet their client's unique needs in digital marketing, social media, personal assistant services, and administrative support. Barbara is also a mom of two, wife to her best friend, Eddie, and an adventure lover with a passion for horses, skiing, tennis, and spending time in nature. Barbara, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?
[restrict paid=”true”]
[00:01:47.20] – Barbara Turley
I am so ready. Let's do it.
[00:01:49.00] – Gresham Harkless
Let's do it. So to kinda kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit, and hear a little bit more on how you got started. Could you take us through your CEO story? We'll let you get started with the business.
[00:01:58.29] – Barbara Turley
Sure. Look, I wasn't a natural-born entrepreneur or a CEO in any way, shape, or form. I started most of my career in the corporate world, where I was probably there for about fifteen years in investment banking, and various areas of the financial, industry. And I loved that career. It was only when I sort of hit my thirties that I started thinking, I actually, to be honest, didn't want to be a corporate mom. That was a lot of what I wanted to sort of explore what else I could do. And coupled with that, I wanted to have a sense of building something that was having an impact, I guess.
And I started looking at people who were doing online stuff and I found my way into accidentally actually into kind of digital marketing and accidentally into the virtual hub, which today is quite a large and growing company. But my journey into being a CEO was kind of very organic, sort of accidental, and quite adventurous, I suppose you could say.
[00:03:02.90] – Gresham Harkless
Yeah. I would say everything about, you know, running a business is adventurous and I know that some of your passions that you have, so I'm sure that probably helps you out in dealing with some of the things that happen in business as well.
[00:03:12.30] – Barbara Turley
It does indeed. Yeah. Absolutely.
[00:03:14.50] – Gresham Harkless
Nice. So, I wanted to to drill down a little bit deeper here a little bit more on what you're doing with the virtual hub. Could you take us through a little bit more on where you arrived and how you started the class you work with?
[00:03:24.59] – Barbara Turley
Sure. So the virtual hub, we are a virtual assistant, training, and management company at our core. We do specialize in the digital marketing arena or digital marketing implementation is what I like to say. And the goal basically of the company is to take a lot of the heavy lifting off, you know, companies that are particular companies that are trying to scale, you know, or even solopreneurs that are trying to grow and they just want to, you know, stop doing so much doing and they need to try and get on with growing.
And today with everything being remote and everything being so digitally focused, I mean, we've done like ten years of digital transformation in the last year, this year that we're sitting in with the pandemic and everything. So, you know, the amount of work involved for, businesses in that area, can bog a lot of businesses down. So the idea is to get, you know, very well-trained staff, really well looked after. We are Philippines-based, so all of our team, and all of our people are in the Philippines. And then, you know, service our client accounts and, and have virtual assistants go in and help with the execution of processes and tasks and all the doing that's involved in being, you know, an entrepreneur or running a company essentially. So that's really what we do at our core.
[00:04:37.00] – Gresham Harkless
Nice. I love that. I love that phrase that you said, you know, not focused on the doing, but on the growing. And I think so many times, you can get caught out of your zone of genius doing the things that aren't helping you propel the business. So it's so important to have, you know, organizations and agencies like you to be able to kinda lean on so that you're able to focus on the things that are gonna drive the needle forward.
[00:04:56.30] – Barbara Turley
Yeah. And, of course, you know, I mean, the whole concept of recruiting is so difficult, not even just in the Philippines, but anywhere.
[00:05:02.60] – Gresham Harkless
Yeah.
[00:05:03.30] – Barbara Turley
Recruiting people sort of get blindsided by it and they, they, you know, all entrepreneurs suffer from this. They think I'll just jump online and then find someone. And you know, when you're looking for one person, you might get a home run, but if you're trying to grow, you're taking on an entirely different game trying to do that. And then HR management and then training and all of this stuff involved. And, you know, the goal of our company is to try to partner with businesses, to take that heavy lifting off them in this particular niche and vertical that we specialize in.
[00:05:32.89] – Gresham Harkless
Yeah. And I'm glad you, you know, you talked about that because you're right where sometimes you just think, oh, just go to this website and you'll be able to find something. You might be able to find that person, but you talked about that training aspect, all of the different aspects that, not go into not only go into finding that role but also helping that person be successful and grow are so important. So that's why I love that you kind of, help kind of it sounds like partnering with businesses to make sure that that happens.
[00:05:58.10] – Barbara Turley
Yeah. That's our goal is to be to become and so we sort of our tagline is, we don't just give you a VA, we give you an ecosystem. So we are an ecosystem. You know, we want to be partnering with businesses, and hopefully, a lot of our clients have gone on to grow with us, you know, so they end up with teams of people. And they might've started with just a part-time VA, but sometimes they're up to sort of four or five, six people. And, and that's the goal to see people do that and to help them to grow is, makes me feel very proud. You know, and also our people help them with career development and all the leadership and culture stuff that goes along with that. It's very important too.
[00:06:32.89] – Gresham Harkless
Yeah. You're never in a bad place when you have a win, win, win, win opportunities and everybody gets an opportunity to kinda grow, and expand. And so you use this word, the ecosystem. I was gonna ask you for what I call your secret sauce and it could be for your organization your business or a combination of both. Do you feel like that ecosystem piece that you kinda spoke to is really what makes you unique and sets you all apart?
[00:06:54.80] – Barbara Turley
Yeah. I truly believe so because, you know, and also a deep focus on the client and what the client needs and where their pain points are. Sometimes they don't know how to articulate it, but every time as a company, and this is like a pro tip of advice for anyone trying to build a company, every time you get a complaint or something happens or there's a negative experience, that's where the gold is. That's where you can build a better solution. And once you get over the shock of somebody complaining or something saying something terrible about your service or your product, you can use that to redesign, redevelop, to evolve.
And I think the secret sauce of the virtual hub has been a continual focus on every single time that happens, we ask ourselves, how can we make sure this never happens again? How do we change the entire experience? And the ecosystem came from that. We realized that training was a problem, recruiting was a problem, growing, and managing, all of these things were problematic.
And then on the VA side, a lot of our employees, they're all full-time employees of our company. And on the VA side as well, career development was a problem for them. You know, churning and burning through clients was a problem in the freelance market. So we're trying to create an ecosystem for both sides where where everyone is successful. And it's not just about a client, it's about the people as well. And what do they want? So that's very important for us. Yeah. But I think that the clincher is our training programs. We, don't just recruit and manage people. We train people as well. So that's, that's a real differentiator for us.
[00:08:26.30] – Gresham Harkless
Yeah. And that's huge. I often say so many times that people skip past the human aspect of business, and I'm glad, you know, within the ecosystem in many different ways, both ecosystems, I should say, you know, you get that opportunity to develop and grow and build those connections, those bonds. And that dependability and reliability, I think that happens because you have built an ecosystem where people understand and can get those results that they're looking for and know that they're being heard and things are being implemented as well.
[00:08:52.79] – Barbara Turley
Yeah. Absolutely. It's very important. At the end of the day, it is a people business. I guess all businesses are people businesses. And I think that's something that many often forget, you know, and you can always get better at it. I mean, you know, there's, there's, there's always ways to improve and with people, it can be hard, you know? So you just gotta listen and evolve and grow and, and, and try your best as the leader to make the tough calls when you need to, but also to listen to the people as deeply as you can to implement change. You know?
[00:09:22.79] – Gresham Harkless
I wanted to, switch gears a little bit, and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?
[00:09:34.39] – Barbara Turley
Yeah. That's a great question. I think, and this is for me, but I, you know, again, I think this could probably apply to everyone. Do less. Less is more. I see an awful lot of CEOs, right? , I guess it's a busy role, but does it always, does it have to be? I think people are still doing too much and the power of singular focus or, you know, getting a particular vertical right or trying to, you know, nail a core part of a business before you start adding on all the bells and whistles. So power of singular focus, less is more, less busy, and focusing your role more on mentoring and leading your, leadership team and empowering them to run the thing.
And I see that as the role of the CEO. I see the role really to be, to be someone who's gonna empower and lead a team to then go on and make a lot of the decisions and do a lot of the doing. Because as a CEO, and even as COO you know, part of the doing of the So, you know, part of the doing of the CEO role or the COO role is to create space so that, and that could be, for example, I go skiing, you know, I try and get out in nature, because that's where the big ideas come for me anyway. That's what I have found it to be. So I'm very particular about my time.
[00:11:05.39] – Gresham Harkless
Appreciate that. And so I want to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So this could be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. You might have already touched on this, but it might be something you would tell a client. Or if you hopped into a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.
[00:11:19.89] – Barbara Turley
Yes. I stole this from someone else. So a friend and mentor of mine said this to me, and I've said this on so many podcasts. It's like and I remember I was having a particularly bad, like, is, you know, in, in any corporate career or an entrepreneur or whatever it is you're doing, yeah, of course, you have bad times, things are going wrong, you're not being as successful as you wanna be.
And I was having a particularly bad time, but and I remember she said to me, I think it's like an Arabic proverb or something. The dogs may be barking, but the caravan still passes. And the point, of that proverb is to say that there will always be, I don't know if you the caravans that go through the deserts, and, you know, they pass through the different areas and dogs will bark, you know, but you have to keep going and you have to be like that, that caravan that just is on, you know, it's going anyway.
So that for me has always been very powerful when I get in the weeds and I'm a little bit kind of getting stuck in the detail of problems. And I think, you know, this is all just noise. We've just got to, just the vision, just keep going. That's very powerful for
[00:12:25.60] – Gresham Harkless
me. Absolutely. Absolutely. And so I wanted to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quotes, unquote CEOs on the show. You might have also touched on this, but what does being a CEO mean to you?
[00:12:38.60] – Barbara Turley
Yeah, that's a funny one because I know, you know, being a CEO is about being the visionary, I guess, of the company and, and leading it. For me, and this could be the stage of business that I'm at, I still see my, role as the CEO to be like the it's funny. My team has this name for me, my leadership team, made up this name called the mythical ship captain. And I love that because I feel like, you know, they're all rowing the boat, but somebody needs to kind of see where we're, you know, above the trees and where we're going. And needs to empower them, inspire them, and keep them energized and motivated and excited. And I see that as my role, is keeping them inspired and keeping them motivated, and the market, I guess, about what we're doing, you know, on these podcasts and stuff like that. That's my role. Help them to be great, you know?
[00:13:34.00] – Gresham Harkless
Yeah. Absolutely. Getting the people in the right place to be able to be successful and be able to kinda quote, unquote give them what they need to be successful, whether that be, you know, a Marshawn or potentially a hug or whatever that might be to make sure that they're empowered to be successful. And I think that you know, it's kind of a balanced beam approach that we have, but I love that definition. I love the kind of analogy and metaphor as well too because it gives you that visual of what you're trying to do, to reach whatever that goal might be.
[00:14:02.20] – Barbara Turley
Yeah. Hundred percent. Yep.
[00:14:04.39] – Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, Barbara, truly appreciate that, and I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you could let our readers and listeners know and, of course, how best they can get ahold of you and find out about all the awesome things you and your team are working on.
[00:14:19.89] – Barbara Turley
Sure. Yeah. So I guess what I would like to finish on is everybody glorifies the CEO role, but we are, you know like anyone who's in the CEO position knows that particularly in a time like what we're, we're experiencing now, we are still human, you know, and we, we will make mistakes. And it's, you know, it's kind of, I think the last year has shown so many CEOs and leadership teams that it's kinda to be authentic, to not to be afraid, to be vulnerable, without falling apart.
But, you know, vulnerability is something that you have to strike a balance between strength, authenticity, and vulnerability. And that is where your real strength with your team will lie. So for for me, I've definitely kind of always known that, but I've learned that lesson in the last in the last year.
So if people wanna connect with me, I do a little bit on LinkedIn. I'm not I'm not huge on social media, but, you can find me personally over on LinkedIn or over on our website. We have tons of content over there about anyone looking, to scale a business using virtual assistance or offshoring and outsourcing. The virtual hub dot com, jump over there. And over there, you can book a call with one of our team as well if you wanna have a chat about how we can help you.
[00:15:34.20] – Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, I appreciate that, Barbara. We will have the links and information, in the show notes as well too, but I appreciate you for talking about that. I don't know, transparency, the vulnerability piece, because I think it is difficult to grow and try to run a business, but I think so many times you have to have that balance beam, as you said so well, of being able to to be transparent and be vulnerable enough to say, you know, this might be a challenge. This might be a difficult time, but it's still, you know, when just like the the captain, be able to kinda chart that course to be successful. So when you're able to kinda strike a good balance, you really can reach an entirely different level. So I love, that perspective, and I appreciate you for sharing it.
[00:16:13.70] – Barbara Turley
Thanks so much for having me.
[00:16:15.60] – Outro
Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo. co. I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.
[00:00:24.89] - Intro
Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.
[00:00:52.70] - Gresham Harkless
Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast, and I have a very special guest on the show today. Ab Ablordae Ashigbe of Four Degrees. Ablordae, it's awesome to have you on the show.
[00:01:02.70] - Ablorde Ashigbi
Oh, excited to be here. Thank you for having me.
[00:01:05.20] - Gresham Harkless
No problem. Super excited to have you on as well too. And before we jump in, I want to read a little bit more about Ablourde so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. Ablorede is the CEO of Four Degrees, a Chicago-based technology company applying machine intelligence to help teams in relationship-driven industries manage their most important source of opportunity, their professional networks. When he's not doing that, you can usually find him lifting weights, reading books, or eating barbecue. Upload air, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?
[00:01:32.70] - Ablorde Ashigbi
Yeah. I'm ready to go.
[00:01:34.00] - Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Well, let's do it then. So to kinda kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit here, a little bit more on how you guys started. Could you take us through your CEO story? We'll let you
[00:01:41.79] - Ablorde Ashigbi
get started with your business. Absolutely. So this business came for myself and my co-founder from really two places. The first is that we spent our careers in heavily relationship-driven industries, So directly before this, we both worked at a family office in Chicago that did a lot of private investing, so think private equity, and venture capital, and then before then, we both worked in consulting, so management consulting, a large portion of hundred corporations.
And across both of those worlds, the commonality was just how incredibly relationship-driven they were. So in the world of consulting, the partner's capability to maintain these relationships with these portion of a hundred executives ultimately would result in multimillion-dollar deals were a function of how well they maintained that connectivity to to those executives and ultimately how they use the network of the firm to get in the door in the first place. And then in investing, our ability to fund, you should companies to invest in, to diligence those deals and then ultimately make the investments and help the company succeed were again predicated on the relationship network that the investors could bring to bear.
And the challenge in each one of those worlds was that there weren't products that understood that to be true about how we operated. And so it ended up happening in a combination of Excel spreadsheets and Airtable bases and Google Sheets. We would try to jam them into a sales-based CRM like Salesforce, which is weighted a lot of things, but long-term relationship management isn't one of them.
And so we saw the opportunity to build upon what we wish we had. And then the second angle that this comes from for us is that and my cofounder both come from what we would describe to be under-network backgrounds. So in my case, I'm the son of two West African immigrants who came to the US, and didn't have a ton of relationships or networks to be able to lean on. And so kind of directly seen firsthand how you know having a lack of relationship connectivity can directly result in opportunities not coming your way. And so we think there's an opportunity to fundamentally shift the way people manage and work with that in the long run as well.
[00:03:41.09] - Gresham Harkless
Nice. I appreciate that and appreciate that, you know, as you said and as I read in the bio, the opportunity within the opportunity to be able to leverage that and in true entrepreneurial form rather than, you know, just saying, hey, somebody should create x y z. You saw firsthand, you know, within the background that you had, but then decided to create, that better mouth shop, I guess you can say, so that people can be able to leverage that those, their networks and that opportunity to be able to be successful. Yep. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I want to drill down a little bit deeper. Could you take us through, exactly how four degrees works and how you serve the clients you work with?
[00:04:16.19] - Ablorde Ashigbi
Absolutely. So what we provide to our customers is a product that they can use to collaboratively understand, manage, and leverage their relationship network. What that looks like in practice is a product that plugs into communication channels. So, like, email, calendar, as well as several third-party systems. We use that to get an understanding of who a team is connected to and communicating with.
Then we apply a bunch of technology we've built on top of that to essentially give them back three things. The first is an enriched view of the team's relationships. It helps them best understand their best path to a given person or company. So to do that, we built some relationship strength detection that helps you figure out which person is your best path in the door.
We've also built some categorization that helps you slice that network by different characteristics to identify people who are whose areas of focus may help you solve a specific problem. The second is that we go and search the world for information about the people in those companies. If they show up in the news, if they publish content, change jobs, or if you're flying to their city, using all of those as opportunities to help you stay engaged, then ultimately best understand how to work with those people to move opportunities forward. And then the last is a bunch of flexible tools and looks that they can use to structure organize and manage that information in one consolidated place.
[00:05:30.60] - Gresham Harkless
Nice. I appreciate that. And I think so many times, you know, we have goals as, you know, professionals. And we understand that a lot of times our networks are a great way for us to be able to get to those goals and reach those goals. But I think it as you said, you know, in the very beginning of your story, just trying to understand exactly how to leverage and in what way to do that and being methodical and as far as, like, efficient and effective with it, sounds like it's it can be a lot more difficult than being able to use your tool to be able to kinda plug into what you have and then give you that data and information and also the kind of tools of the trade to get there.
[00:06:04.00] - Ablorde Ashigbi
Yeah. No. Absolutely. You got you got it a hundred percent right.
[00:06:07.50] - Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. And so what would you consider to be what I call your secret sauce? Sauce? This could be for yourself or your business or a combination of both, but what do you feel kinda sets you apart and makes you unique?
[00:06:17.10] - Ablorde Ashigbi
Yeah. No. I certainly think it's the technology that underpins us. So one element that I described before was our capability of understanding the strength of the relationship. And so that's certainly an area that we think both leads to better outcomes for our outcomes for our customers as well as kind of a differentiation for us. A similar one is the capability of doing some automatic categorization of the people and companies, which again allows a customer to come in on day one and not need to spend hours doing categorization and data entry. I'm able to answer really important questions about their network that, our product helps enable for them. And so, you know, I think it's the technology first, technology forward approach we've taken to the problem that enables a lot of really good outcomes for our customers.
[00:07:00.00] - Gresham Harkless
Yeah. And that makes so much sense. Correct me if I'm wrong. I almost feel like, and I say this a lot, you know, from a marketing standpoint, especially when you're able to use dating, you're able to make those decisions. It allows you to be more present in terms of building that relationship, it sounds like. So you don't have to figure out those things because that data is, you know, there for you, and you're able to spend more time kind of engaging, it sounds like.
[00:07:22.69] - Ablorde Ashigbi
Yeah. Well, right. We think about the role of technology as it stands in the relationship management and development space. It is not replacing the work you would do to engage with somebody, but rather getting rid of a lot of manual work and effort one would have to do to be able to get to that point. And so exactly as you described, enables more time and energy to be spent doing the things that humans are uniquely capable of, which is truly engaging and connecting.
[00:07:48.80] - Gresham Harkless
Yeah. Absolutely. You can, you know, throw away or virtually, I guess, throw away those, you know, Airtables and Excel spreadsheets that you talked about in the beginning that a lot of people listening might be using and leveraging right now. Absolutely. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?
[00:08:13.10] - Ablorde Ashigbi
Yeah. For me, the biggest habit that makes me more effective is time blocking. So I'm a big believer that if something isn't on your calendar, then it doesn't get done, and so I schedule essentially everything, whether it's my workouts or, time to tackle specific high-priority tasks or, of course, external meetings. All of it lives on my calendar, and I find that it allows me to easily understand, like, what can fit into a day and there and thereby, like, manage expectations. But also it ensures that I know what it is I need to spend my time on at any given point. And so it removes almost a little bit of that decision-making overhead of needing to decide, should I be doing this right now or this or this other thing? And so for me, I find that to be pretty effective for being more efficient.
[00:09:00.60] - Gresham Harkless
Yeah. Love that. I'm a big, you know, time blocker, as well. And I think, as you said so well, it allows you to see everything that you can do. And I think as we talked about with the technology, aspect that you provide through four degrees, it allows you to, I think, be present in each of those slots because you don't have to worry about, did I do x, y, and z? Do I have time to do x, y, and z? Because you have everything planned out which allows you to be present and be more effective and efficient.
[00:09:26.29] - Ablorde Ashigbi
Yep. Exactly right. And, like, spoken by a true, time blocker, I can tell you.
[00:09:31.00] - Gresham Harkless
Yes. Absolutely. And so, I wanted to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget, and this could be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It might be something you would tell a client, or if you hopped into a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.
[00:09:44.70] - Ablorde Ashigbi
Yeah. I think my biggest nugget or piece of wisdom is to over-index the quality of the people that you work with. I think particularly when you're building something from scratch or from nothing as is an early-stage startup, the quality of the people is the the driver of all other forms of success. The market you go after may change. The product you may build may change. How you market and go to market with that may change. But it's all going to be enabled by having a bunch of very talented, very smart, flexible people around you. You also have the right values and integrity. And so long as you index heavily on that, the rest will essentially see itself to fruition.
[00:10:28.70] - Gresham Harkless
Yeah. So I appreciate that nugget. And I think, you know, we see it, you know, during a time like this where, being able to kind of invest and, as you said, index in into, the people and to quality people allows you to to be successful, obviously, in a time that you know and you know everything that's going to happen. But I think if you have those people that are flexible, which is a strong word that you use, it allows you to also make sure that you have the people that can be flexible, able to come up with the solutions and the changes, and won't be kinda caught off guard by all the unexpected things that might happen, you know, at any given time within the business.
[00:11:04.29] - Ablorde Ashigbi
Yeah. No. That's, very much aligned with how I think about it.
[00:11:07.70] - Gresham Harkless
Yeah. That makes so much sense. And so I wanted to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're hoping now different, quote, unquote, CEOs on the show. So I'll I'll I'll blow it a. What does being a CEO mean to you?
[00:11:20.70] - Ablorde Ashigbi
I think being a CEO is being in service of all the others around you. You're trying to build something that's in service of society and of service to your customers. You're, as a leader, trying to be of service to your team and enabling them to not only execute to advance their own professional and personal ambitions through the lens of the company and the role that they hold with you. And so I see the CEO position as fundamentally a service role, and being a CEO means being in service.
[00:11:52.10] - Gresham Harkless
Yeah. And that makes so much sense. And I'm glad, you know, you you broke down those different levels of service as well too. Because I think so many times we think about our our clients and the people that we serve, and, of course, that's important, but we also have to, you know, keep in mind those, that are around us on our teams and those that, maybe even depend on those people that are on the team as well too. And I think when we start to kinda look at that holistically, we start to see with every, you know, decision or every decision
[00:12:21.20] - Ablorde Ashigbi
Awesome.
[00:12:22.60] - Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, I appreciate that, and I appreciate your time even more. What I want to do is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers and listeners know, and, of course, how best they can get a hold of you and find out about all the awesome things you and your team are working on.
[00:12:37.39] - Ablorde Ashigbi
Yeah. I mean, probably the second thing I would have said around the CEO nugget would have been the importance of relationships and business and not to top my book too much. But I do fundamentally believe that the most important events or transactions are similar or underpinned by relationships and by how all those relationships have been managed over time. And so, if I had to take a second, it would certainly be that. In terms of how to best get in touch with me or the team, so first, the company website, four degrees dot ai. The second, I am at Ablorda, so my first name at fourdegrees dot ai, or I'm fairly active on Twitter at AblordaCS.
[00:13:19.29] - Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, we'll have those links and information in the show notes, and I love that second nugget. And I think it falls right in line with everything that you do. And I think so many times we forget, how important the network is and how that human aspect of business, which we often can kinda zoom over, is entirely important. And when we have tools like the ones that you have all been working on, it allows us to optimize that even more and to be even more present and more effective. So definitely appreciate all the awesome work you're doing. Appreciate your time, of course, and I hope you have a great rest of the day.
[00:13:50.20] - Outro
Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.
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